Deeplinks Blog posts about Innovation

Creative Commons, the non-profit best known for its copyright licenses that allow creators to voluntarily waive certain automatically-granted exclusive rights, has released a powerful new policy statement supporting fundamental copyright reform around the globe. This statement works to counter any argument that simply having a set of voluntary permissive copyright licenses available to rightsholders reduces the need for actual policy reform.

Today we learned just how determined the patent troll Lodsys is to avoid a ruling on the merits of its claims. When software security company Kaspersky Lab refused to surrender, Lodsys settled for nothing (yes, you read that right—absolutely nothing) rather than take its claims to trial.

The competition is fierce, but Lodsys might be the worst patent troll in America. Using vaguely worded early-90s patents that barely rise above gibberish, it has waged a massive campaign of lawsuits and intimidation against small application developers. Last week saw two big stories in the ongoing Lodsys saga.

Patent reform is heating up in Congress. Today House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte released a second discussion draft aimed at preventing abusive patent troll litigation. Chairman Goodlatte has suggested he will move quickly to hold a hearing and committee vote on this legislation.

Today’s draft incorporates many reforms that EFF has long been pushing for. These include:

Internet freedom has gone from bad to worse in Vietnam as an online censorship law known as Decree 72 went into effect this month. It bans bloggers and users of social media from quoting, gathering, or summarizing information from press organizations or government websites. While the main justification for the law is to uphold "national security," Vietnamese authorities also claim that this law is aimed at combating online copyright infringement.